Category: News
(page 1 of 3)

DEADLINE EXTENDED– You can now submit to our February Contest until Feb. 5th, 2017 11:59PM EST. Good for you! Finalists and Winner will be announced beginning on Feb. 10th. All rules, prizes, and entry information remains the same, read below!

Valentine’s Day alone is about love, hate, fine lines between emotions, heartbreak, loneliness, togetherness, etc. With all that riding on one day, we’ve decided to go ahead and celebrate the whole damn month.

Join us as we consider the many wonderful things jammed into the year’s shortest month.

Whatever you can connect to the great month of February is on the table, whether that’s President’s Day, Cupids, Black history, the magical extra day of leap (leap day), it’s all fair game.

Where: Thefuriousgazelle.com

When: Right Now until January 20th February 5th, 2017 at 11:59 pm EST

What: The Winner will receive $50 and a book in the genre of their choosing. All finalists will be published on the furiousgazelle.com (which offers a priceless amount in bragging rights) and they will also appear in and receive copies of the February edition of The Furious Gazelle. That’s right! For the first time ever the Furious Gazelle will be creating an an old-timey print magazine, which you as a winner/finalist will be in and receive a copy of.

Submissions should be under 7,000 words and submitted as a .docx or .doc.

Interpret the theme however loosely or literally you wish. We are hoping to get at least one story in which George Washington’s heart is torn out of his chest as part of his quest to find true love & found the United States.

Happy Halloween! Thanks so much to everyone who entered our 2016 Halloween writing contest! We received hundreds of submissions, but after careful consideration we’re thrilled to announce this year’s winner:

Congratulations, Thaïs! She will be receiving $50 and a book in the genre of her choosing.

Thanks again to everyone who participated! Next year’s Halloween contest will be open to submissions starting in August, 2017. You can also submit all year round to our general submissions. If you missed it, please go back and read our excellent Halloween finalists:

Left to right Garth Nix, Kendare Blake, Renée Ahdieh

This past weekend during New York Comic Con, Bookcon was busy taking over Hudson Mercantile with various panels and signings. At the Fantasy Fandoms Unite panel, Garth Nix (Abhorsen Trilogy), Kendare Blake (Three Dark Crowns), and Renée Ahdieh (The Wrath and the Dawn), sat down to answer fan questions. Continue reading

People of Earth may be TBS’s strangest, if not funniest, new show. Reporter Ozzie Graham, played by Wyatt Cenac, interviews a support group for alien abductees (they prefer the term “experiencers”) in Beacon, NY, a hotbed of alien activity. Though a skeptic, within the first episode he comes to learn and even believe that he may be one of them. Wildly absurd humor and an all-star cast will surely delight audiences.

Creator David Jenkins joined the cast yesterday, October 7, at New York Comic Con, to discuss the stories and inspiration behind People of Earth.

“[The show] really doesn’t have a format, so every episode that we wrote it felt like we were trying to reinvent the show or at least find it in a new way,” Jenkins said.

Though the show is a sci-fi comedy, Jenkins said that he was most interested in exploring the characters that populate his zany universe. “The episodes that I like the best tend to focus on a personal life, then what’s happening in the group, then there’s a sci-fi story that seems to be happening around it but it’s not the focus on the actual episode. You’re still in that world. It’s a comedy that has really interesting sci-fi things around it.”

Dear readers,

Although the leaves have not yet turned, the time has come once again for the Furious Gazelle’s annual Halloween contest. Send us something haunting, grotesque, pumpkin-themed, etc. and you could win a $50 cash prize and a book in the genre of your choosing. The top contenders will all be published on our site with the winner being announced on Halloween. Only one gets the coveted book and prize.

We accept all forms of writing for this contest, including essay, fiction, humor and poetry. Please follow our normal submission guidelines for entries, and look at our last year’s finalists for an idea of what we are looking for. The only rule is that this is a Halloween contest so your piece(s) should reflect that in whatever way you deem Halloween-ish.

That’s right, piece(s)! We will accept up to five submissions from each contestant. There is no fee to enter. Please send your submissions to submit@thefuriousgazelle.com with Halloween Contest Submission in the subject line of your email. The Deadline is Wednesday October 26, 2016 11:59pm EST.

Dear readers,

Although the leaves have not yet turned, the time has come once again for the Furious Gazelle’s annual Halloween contest. Send us something haunting, grotesque, pumpkin-themed, etc. and you could win a $50 cash prize and a book in the genre of your choosing. The top contenders will all be published on our site. Only one gets the coveted book and prize.

We accept all forms of writing for this contest, including essay, fiction, humor and poetry. Please follow our normal submission guidelines for entries, and look at our last year’s finalists for an idea of what we are looking for. The only rule is that this is a Halloween contest so your piece(s) should reflect that in whatever way you deem Halloween-ish.

That’s right, piece(s)! We will accept up to five submissions from each contestant. There is no fee to enter. Please send your submissions to submit@thefuriousgazelle.com with Halloween Contest Submission in the subject line of your email. The Deadline is Monday October 26, 2015.

Q: Your drawings in the Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage are very kinetic. How do you think your work as an animator informs your 2D drawing style?

Sydney Padua: Thanks! I work in 3D on a computer now, but I started out old-school animating on paper back in the Good Ol’ Days. Animation is a great teacher for drawing expressive characters— it comes from the same tradition as Vaudeville and pantomime, a language of archetypes that works well for comics. You learn a lot about conveying energy and character in a pose, because in a sense you are part of theatrical troupe, you’re always thinking in terms of supporting the story and the scene. And of course there is simply the training aspect of producing enormous volumes of drawings at speed— drawing all day every day for a few years, you’re bound to learn something!

Conversely, I think I took as long getting the ‘animation’ back out of my drawing— after many years as an industrial drawer I’d lost a feeling for my own line, my own way of relating to drawing. The nice thing about working on a computer is I felt I had my drawing to myself again; I didn’t have draw ‘correctly’ any more.

Q: Parts of L&B reminded me of Alan Moore’s LoEG, in the best way possible. Can you tell us about some authors and artists who influence your work in general, and this work in particular?

Sydney Padua:One of my clearest memories is being six years old and touring the Louvre, surrounded on every side by the greatest masterpieces of civilisation from antiquity to the present day. I didn’t see any of them because my nose was buried in an Asterix comic, which I as far as I was concerned eclipsed all previous human accomplishments. I still sort of think that, and instinctively feel that awful puns, extravagant sound effects, and a lot of running around and shouting are the mark of Quality Historical Literature.

Alongside Asterix, the late, great Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice. It’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, but marching along under and beside and around the text are a friendly crowd of footnotes. They might have the original poem Lewis Carroll was mocking, or a tidbit of biography, or an explanation of relevant 19th century mathematics. Mostly the footnotes were little short snippets but sometimes they’d take over half the page when they got unruly. I used to spend hours and hours poring over that book when I was twelve or thirteen and still perk up every time I see a footnote in a book.

Q: L&B is littered with great tidbits from history that you found through research. What’s one of your favourite facts about the pair?

Sydney Padua: Only one fact!? Can I have two? One for each? My favourite Lovelace find is a single sentence from the “News Miscellany” in the New York Mirror of 1835, when Ada was 20. It reports, in full: “It is said that Ada Byron, the sole daughter of the “noble bard,” is the most coarse and vulgar woman in England!” Ada was given to swearing a surprising amount in her letters (don’t get too shocked, by swearing I just mean things like “damned”), but that’s a tantalising and very rare peek into what impression she must have given in person. She was not a very good Victorian lady!

My favourite Babbage anecdote is from a little memoir called Sunny Memories, by a lady who knew Babbage in his old age. She tells a story about how he forgot his calling-­cards once when visiting, so he pulled a gear out of his pocket, scratched his name on it, and left that instead! I couldn’t have made up something so irresistibly Babbagey in a million years. If that gear ever turned up on the Antiques Roadshow it would be worth a fortune!

Q: In the book you touch on computer science scholars who don’t believe AL original work developing the worlds first complete computer program is really her own. Why do you think that is?

Sydney Padua:That’s actually a really complicated question. It’s tempting to say it’s just just straight up sexism because, I mean, a lot of it is just straight up sexism. The critics tend to use pretty blatant language– she was a “lusty coquette”, a “hysteric”, “mad as a hatter”, they go on about her love life and her personality and her wanting attention– as though Babbage wasn’t weird, arrogant, and wanted attention! There’s a sort of “fake geek girl” narrative that sounds awfully familiar. Some of it is a genuine question mark— for sure Babbage sketched out some work for the program, it was a collaborative process, I think that’s pretty clear from their letters. To me it’s also evident from the letters that the final program was Lovelace’s. I do think some of the ‘Team Babbage’ people resent how much attention Lovelace gets when poor old Babbage already had such a hard time getting recognition in his own lifetime, and as a Babbage fan I get where they’re coming from– I want Babbage to be celebrated and adored too! But I’m Team Lovelace and Babbage, which is the best team, and also fights crime.

Q: Right now, is there anything going on in your life, or in the world, that makes you furious?

Sydney Padua: Hmmm, I’m not a very furious person! I’m piqued.. nettled? that so many women are persuaded to feel that computers aren’t their “territory”. Women were there from the very beginning!

Rori Shay, author of the Elected series, has a new short story in the upcoming anthology Athena’s Daughter’s 2, an all-female sci-fi and fantasy anthology from Silence in the Library Publishing. Athena’s Daughter’s 2 is now available for pre-order.

We talked to Rori Shay about her writing process, her influences, and her upcoming work.

Q: Could you tell us a bit about your upcoming story “The Pendant” in Athena’s Daughter’s 2?

A: Sure! It’s a prequel to the ELECTED trilogy. It’s about a mom who’s asked to give up her most valuable possession to aid in her son’s quest. The thing is, she doesn’t agree with what her son’s about to do, and his quest leaves the country without a leader. It’s a story about duty versus desire and a mother’s love.Q: Your short story “The Pendant” is based on a longer work of yours, “ELECTED.” How do you approach a short story differently than a novel?

A: It is a totally different process. For the longer novels, of which there are three in the Elected Series, I wrote a detailed outline for each one. For the short story I just had an idea of what would happen and got right into writing.

Q: Do you have any advice for authors who are struggling to write their first novel?

My advice for first time authors is to create an outline. It doesn’t have to be much, just the bare bones of the story. Then keep adding to it, and make breaks for chapters after anything major happens.

Q: Do you remember the first piece of sci-fi you ever wrote? What was it about and when did you write it?

A: Yep, it was ELECTED. Before that book, I’d only ever written children’s picture books and a women’s fiction novel. I got really into the dystopian books for YA and decided to create my own in which I delved into the science. I got tired of reading about dystopias where you had to guess how the earth was ruined. I wanted to tell readers exactly how it happened and weave in climate change as an important topic.

Q: What are some of the books that you read growing up? How do you think they influenced your later writing, if they did?

Q: What do you suggest we do to increase representation of women in sci-fi and fantasy?

A: Read them! Support them! Let them know that men aren’t the only techy sciencey people who can write sci-fi and fantasy! Women can write it too! Girl Power!

Rori Shay is a strategic management consultant living in the Seattle area with her family, black lab, and cat. In the writing world, Rori is primarily know for her science fiction trilogy,The Elected Series. She enjoys running, reading, snow-shoeing, pumpkin-picking, and right now…writing the third ELECTED novel! Rori is also a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

You can follow Rori on Twitter at @RoriShayWrites or email her directly at rorishay(@)gmail (dot)com.

The Furious Gazelle spoke with author Megan O’Russell about her recent novel, The Tethering, and her upcoming short story in Athena’s Daughter’s II, and what makes her furious.

Q: The Tethering is your first novel. Where did the inspiration to write it come from, and what was the process of writing it like?

The process for writing The Tethering was a little strange and not something I would necessarily repeat. The idea for The Tethering came from a little boy waiting in a window for a girl to come back. I don’t really remember why that image came to me, but I needed to find out more about the boy. I wrote a scene and then another scene, and after a lot of revisions and changes, The Tethering was born. In projects since The Tethering, I’ve kept much closer track of what I’ve written so I don’t rewrite the same information ten times. I’m still finding the process that works best for me.

Q: Your upcoming short story in Athena’s Daughter’s II is based on the world of the Tethering. What were some of the challenges you faced creating a new story in the same world? Do you have plans to return to the Tethering world again?

My story in Athena’s Daughters 2, “At the Corner of the Garden Wall,” actually takes place during The Tethering. And if you read both stories, it is easy to see where the two line up. Claire, the girl featured in “At the Corner of the Garden Wall,” is a secondary character in The Tethering, but I have been told many times that everyone wants to know more about her. This story is Claire’s chance to have an adventure all her own. The biggest challenge was deciding what parts of the world of The Tethering were really necessary for the short story. If I had tried to explain everything about how magic works in “At the Corner of the Garden Wall,” I wouldn’t have had room for the actual story. I also had to refrain from getting too in depth with the setting. I know who lives where in the house, but the readers don’t need that information. So it all had to be cut.

And as for returning to The Tethering, book two in the four part series, The Siren’s Realm, will be available for preorder in February, so I am very much still in the world of The Tethering.

Q: How do you approach world building? When you started writing The Tethering, how much of the world did you plan out before you started writing?

I knew what I wanted. I wanted wizards to mix with our world. I didn’t want them to be separated from us. I wanted readers to believe that the sewer grate at the end of the street might be exploding because of magic. Figuring out the how and the why of it all was one of my greatest joys in writing the series.

Q: Do you remember the first thing you ever wrote? What was it about and when did you write it?

I wrote a middle grade fantasy novel when I was in high school. I’m an actor by trade, and I wrote the story backstage during King Lear. I think writing and acting really go hand in hand. They are both wonderful forms of storytelling. And I am so grateful to have the opportunity to follow both passions.

Q: What are some of the books that you read growing up? How do you think they influenced your later writing, if they did?

I was such an avid reader my parents had to use both of their library cards so I could have enough books to only go to the library once a week. One of my favorite authors was Madeline L’Engle. I think from her writing I not only took away a sense of wonder, but also the desire to let my characters be who they need to be, even if I have to write another story for them to have that opportunity.

Q: What makes you furious about the lack of female science-fiction and fantasy authors published? How do you think we can increase representation of women in sci-fi and fantasy?

When I was looking for a home for The Tethering, the publisher I worked with briefly before Silence in the Library didn’t understand that the story was about more than romance. All they could see was the boy and the girl. The magic meant nothing to them. I was lucky enough to have a supportive editor who didn’t try to make me cut all the fantasy elements from The Tethering, but it was still rough. Because I am a woman, and there was love in my book, all it was to them was a romance. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean all I can write is teenage angst. And just because a boy loves a girl doesn’t mean there isn’t more to the story.

I am so grateful I found Silence in the Library and a true home for The Tethering. I am also thrilled to be a part of a project that strives to give more women a voice in fantasy and science-fiction. I think the best thing we can do to increase representation of women in sci-fi and fantasy is to support more projects like Athena’s Daughters 2. The only way for women to find their voice is to be given the chance to speak.

Megan O’Russell is thrilled to be publishing At the Corner of the Garden Wall with Silence in the Library. At the Corner of the Garden Wall is a part of The Tethering series, book one of which is currently available from SitL. And if you read The Tethering closely, you’ll find the night on which the adventure in the garden happens. Originally from New York, Megan is a professional actress who spends her time traveling the country for different shows. When not on stage or writing, Megan spends time with her beloved ukulele and her wonderful husband. To follow Megan’s writing adventures, you can visit her website at meganorussell.com.

Happy Day of the Dead. On an unrelated note, since it’s not the same holiday, we would like to announce our Halloween contest winner. We loved all our finalists for the Halloween contest and this was a very hard decision to make. But we made it. Because we had so many great submissions, we have decided that in addition to our first prize, which is a book and a $25 gift card, we will also be awarding the first runner up a book in the genre of their choosing.

The second runner up is: Mureall Hébert for her flash pieces “The Side of the Road” and “Why I Had to Bite You” Congratulations Mureall, you’ve won a book in the genre of your choice!

The first runner up is: J. J. Steinfeld for “The Nefarious: A Tale of a Notorious Halloween Dance”

Congratulations J.J., you also get a book in the genre of your choice!

Our first place winner of the book and $25 gift card is Michael Puican for his poem “Halloween”